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9 of the Best Homebrew Packages for Mac

written by applenws

If you’re an advanced Mac user who spends a considerable amount of time at the command line, you likely have Homebrew installed by now. So, how about sharing a list of some of the best Homebrew packages available for Mac users?


We’ve discussed Homebrew many times before, but essentially it makes installing additional command line tools easier than ever, as there is no compiling necessary and it handles dependencies for you. Even if you don’t have Homebrew installed, this list of some of the more helpful Homebrew packages and tools may inspire you to get Homebrew on your Mac.

To get any use from this list you’ll want to be a reasonably advanced command line user, and you’ll obviously need to install Homebrew on the Mac if you haven’t done so yet. Then you’re ready to go and enjoy the collection. And don’t forget to share your own favorite Homebrew packages in the comments too.

In no particular order, here are some of the top Homebrew packages for Mac:

cask

Cask allows you to easy install Mac OS GUI apps and binaries directly from the command line using Homebrew. First you install cask, and then you can install normal Mac apps directly from the command line.

brew install cask

For example, once you have cask, if you want to install Chrome from the command line, then Cask can do that with with a command like the following:

brew cask install google-chrome

Or maybe you want to install iterm2 so you can have that cool drop-down command line available from anywhere:

brew cask install iterm2

Cask can install tons of applications in Mac OS without needing to download them individually from various websites and then going through the typical drag-and-drop install routine.

Note that Cask has some limitations, for example it can’t install anything from the Mac App Store, and Cask is not able to install software updates to the Mac like the ‘softwareupdate’ command is able to, but that doesn’t make it any less useful of a tool for advanced Mac users.

htop

htop is a system resource monitor for the command line. htop is basically a superior version of ‘top’, with a nice visual indicator of process activity, CPU activity, memory usage, load average, and process management. You can kind of think of it like Activity Monitor for the command line, though many command line users would argue it’s even more useful than Activity Monitor is.

brew install htop

We’ve discussed installing htop on the Mac before, it’s really a fantastic tool that deserves to be a part of any command line toolbox.

wget

wget can download data from the web and ftp, making it one of the best tools out there to download anything via the command line. Whether you want to download just a single file from somewhere, or you want to download an entire directory or even mirror a full website, wget can do it for you.

brew install wget

You can also install wget without Homebrew, but if you’re reading this article you likely already have Homebrew.

nmap

nmap is a top notch network security scanner. It can find network assets, discover services and hosts on local networks, perform port scans, map a network (hence the name), detect operating systems and versions of software on clients and servers, and so much more. It’s an excellent tool for systems administrators, network admins, security researchers, and anyone else who needs to dabble in network scanning activity.

brew install nmap

You can also get nmap for Mac as a disk image in a self contained binary if you’d rather not deal with home-brew, but again, we’re talking about homebrew here.

Oh and if the concept of nmap appeals to you but the command line is far over your head or too cumbersome, then you can use Network Utility on Mac OS to perform port scans, finger, whois, trace route, ping, and much more, all from a friendlier GUI app.

links

links and lynx are command line web browsers, allowing you full web access (well, as long as there’s text to navigate) from the command line. This is useful for many reasons whether researching and web browsing from a terminal window, or even for testing web site functionality and compatibility with alternate browsers and for alternate use cases. I’m partial to ‘links’ but ‘lynx’ is good too, or you can install both.

brew install links

We’ve discussed lynx before macports, and you can also get lynx with image support if you’re interested, but again if you have Homebrew installed then it’s a piece of cake to install through the command line.

geoiplookup

geoip gives you geolocation data for an inputted IP address. This is useful for network and systems administrators, web workers, security researchers, and much more.

brew install geoip

If you ever wondered where a particular IP is located in the world and to what ISP it belongs, then geoip is for you.

irssi

Do you like to chat on IRC? Want to be told to ‘rtfm’ when you ask a question in #linux? Then irssi is for you, because it’s arguably the best irc client for the command line (or perhaps in general, sorry ircii, mirc, and ircle).

brew install irssi

/join away!

bash-completion

If you use the bash shell, then bash-completion is likely something you’re either familiar with or soon will be since it dramatically improves command completion and is programable. Personally I’m partial to zsh which also has great completion capabilities, but bash-completion makes bash much more useful, so if you’re a bash fan then check it out if it sounds appealing to you.

brew install bash-completion

Oh and this probably goes without saying but if you changed your shell at some point in Terminal app then you’d want to use bash to get any use out of bash-completion.

watch

The watch command is super useful to keep a continuous eye on another process. For example you can use watch to track disk usage or IO, or virtual memory usage, or anything else, updating the command output every few seconds. This is one of those great tools for administrators but it’s useful for many other purposes too.

brew install watch

Home-brew isn’t the only approach for watch, you can also install watch on Mac OS using MacPorts, from source, or as a precompiled binary too.

What do you think? Do you have any particularly favorite Homebrew packages? Share your own top Homebrew packages, tricks, installs, and add-ons in the comments below!

Source: OSX Daily

March 26, 2018 0 comment
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How to Make a Window Full Screen on Mac

written by applenws

Want to take a single window and make it full screen on a Mac? This is a fairly common activity for Mac users, particularly if they’re used to the Maximize window button on a Windows PC. It turns out there are a few ways to accomplish the maximization of windows on Mac OS, it’s a deceptively simple task on a Mac, as the two methods we will discuss here are quite different from one another.


One approach to taking a window full screen in Mac OS relies on what’s known as Full Screen Mode, which turns an application window into it’s own separate workspace by maximizing a window to take up the entire screen. This method removes the menu bar from the top of the screen (until it’s hovered over with a cursor), and removes all traditional window elements when in full screen mode, thereby hiding the window titlebar, close button, minimize and maximize buttons, and does not allow for other app windows to appear on top of it.

The other approach is literally making a window take up the full screen, but it still maintains that window as a window rather than a dedicated space. This allows the menu bar to stay persistent visible, the window title bar to still be visible along with the close button, maximize and minimize buttons, the sizing handles, and it still allows for other windows and apps to tile onto the window too. By making a window take up the entire screen, it does not become it’s own space the way that the aforementioned “Full Screen Mode” does.

How to Make a Window Full Screen in Mac OS

The first approach we’ll cover is how to literally make a window take up the entire screen on a Mac. This is not the same as “Full Screen Mode” which we will discuss separately.

  1. Take any window that can be expanded on the Mac and hover your mouse near any of the four corners until you see the cursor turn into arrows pointing away from one another
  2. Hold down the OPTION / ALT key on the Mac keyboard and drag out from the corner of the window
  3. Keep dragging while holding option until the cursor has reached a corner of the screen, thereby making the window full screen and taking up the entire display

The animated GIF below shows how this works, as you can see the window expands out from the center until it takes up the full screen on the Mac:

Make Window Full Screen on Mac

This is the easiest way to make a window literally take up the entire screen, without losing its underlying functionality as a window.

And yes of course you can also just manually drag the window around on screen into a corner and then resize the opposite corner to drag it to take up the entire display, but that’s going to be as fast for most Mac users.

Another nice variation of this trick uses window snapping to put multiple windows alongside one another, sort of like a split screen view but while maintaining the capabilities of standard windows, and allowing for far more than just two window panels side-by-side.

How to Take Windows Into Full Screen Mode on a Mac

You may already be familiar with what’s known as Full Screen Mode, which is the default result of clicking the little green button in a windows title bar in all modern Mac OS versions.

There isn’t much to using Full Screen Mode, just click the green button in a windows titlebar and you’ll send that app or window into full screen.

Take a Window into Full Screen Mode on Mac

With Full Screen Mode, an app or window becomes a dedicated space that you will see through Mission Control.

Full Screen Mode hides the window titlebar and menu bar on a Mac, and to see either of those you must take the cursor to the top of the screen to reveal those buttons and menu items again.

The primary disadvantage to Full Screen mode is that it may be difficult to multitask with more than one app at a time, though using Split Screen View in Mac OS can help that by placing two full screened apps side-by-side.

Exiting full screen mode on the Mac is accomplished by bringing the mouse cursor near the top of the screen and then clicking on the green button again.

You can also enter and exit Full Screen mode on Mac with a keyboard shortcut if interested. Again, this is Full Screen Mode, which is not the same as simple enlarging a window.

Longtime Mac users may recall that the Green button in the window titlebar used to function more as a maximize toggle rather than Full Screen toggle, and if you miss having that capability you may be pleased to discover you can still maximize and zoom windows with the Green button without entering full screen mode by using a key modifier before clicking the green button. But, don’t expect the maximize feature to work quite like it does on a Windows PC, as it does not necessarily take the entire window full screen, and if often just enlarges the window so that it hits the top menu bar and the bottom near the Dock, but without expanding horizontally. Sort of curious, but that’s just the way it works.

There’s no right or wrong way here to full screen a window on the Mac, it’s just a matter of personal preference and what you’re aiming for. Some people may not like different spaces or they want the ability to interact with the other applications in a tiling fashion, thus full screen mode may not be appropriate. On the other hand, some people like the distraction free environment offered by full screen mode, and thus they’d prefer that approach. Use what works for you.

If you enjoyed these tips, you’d probably also appreciate learning some simple window management keyboard shortcuts for Mac OS.

Have any tips or tricks for full screening windows on a Mac? Share them in the comments below!

Source: OSX Daily

March 25, 2018 0 comment
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How to Find Duplicate Files on Mac with DupeGuru

written by applenws

Are you concerned about duplicate files on a Mac? While most Mac users shouldn’t be bothered by duplicate files as it’s likely that very few if any exist, there are situations where they can be found, thereby adding unnecessary clutter to a Mac file system. For example, the user ~/Downloads folder is a common place for duplicate files to exist, usually from when someone downloads a file, picture, zip, movie, installer, or app from somewhere, forgets about it, and then proceeds to download the same item yet again, thus creating a duplicate of the same file. Or maybe you just frequently make copies of files and they slowly accumulate over time, whether needed or not.

This guide will demonstrate a method for how to find duplicate files on a Mac.


This tutorial is intended for advanced users, and requires significant attention to detail to properly find and confirm if files, images, movies, archives, and other data are indeed duplicates or not. The article will use a free third party tool called DupeGuru to track down duplicate files on a Mac. And not that we’re covering Windows here, but DupeGuru is available for that Mac, Windows, and Linux, so if Mac is not your only computer then you can use the same tools elsewhere.

Dupeguru is a very powerful tool for finding duplicate files of all sorts, and by using a variety of different search methods, but for our purposes here we’re going to keep the usage as simple as possible. We will not be demonstrating how to edit or delete any of the files found because every file should be independently confirmed as a duplicate before action is taken.

How to Find Duplicate Files on Mac with Dupeguru

Back up your Mac with Time Machine or your backup method of choice before beginning. Failure to backup could lead to permanent data loss.

  1. Get DupeGuru here by downloading it from the developer
  2. Mount the image and open Dupeguru*, optionally copy it to your /Applications/ folder to install it on the Mac
  3. Select a specific folder, or drag a directory into the Dupeguru window then choose “Scan” – DO NOT SELECT YOUR ENTIRE HARD DRIVE **

    4. How to find duplicate files on Mac with DupeGuru

  4. Let the scan complete, it may take a while depending on the size of the directory being scanned for duplicates

    5. How to find duplicate files on Mac with DupeGuru

  5. When finished scanning the directory, a list of potential duplicates will appear on screen

    6. Duplicate files found on Mac with DupeGuru

You’ll notice that any found duplicate items, files, pictures, zips, archives, etc will appear as a name with an intended potential match underneath each entry. Pay special attention to the “Match %” chance, as generally you’ll want to ignore anything that is not 100%.

You can double-click any item – original or duplicate – to open it in the Finder, or open it within its own default app. For example if you double-click a text file it will launch into TextEdit.

Dupeguru allows bulk action for deleting, moving, or copying any found duplicate files, but because of the potential to accidentally remove or permanently delete data, we’re not focusing on that here. If that interests you, go to the ‘Action’ menu after you have successfully found duplicates in a directory.

Caution: Always Confirm Duplicate Files Before Modifying, Moving, or Removal

You should manually double-check to confirm every single set of duplicates found, particularly before taking action on the files in question.

Absolutely do not delete or modify any duplicate files without knowing for certainty what the file(s) are and if you need them or not.

Also, do NOT delete or modify any files labeled as duplicates without backing up the Mac and the files in question.

If you don’t manually confirm duplicates, or you fail to backup, it’s possible you will remove files that are not actually duplicates. This could lead to permanent data loss of files.

For users with no duplicates but who want to try out this tool anyway, or if you want to try a test with some known duplicate files, you can use the “Duplicate Exactly” function in Mac OS with a file and then run DupeGuru where that file is contained. It’s a good way to see how the app works.

* You may need to right-click and choose “Open” to bypass the Gatekeeper unidentified app warning in Mac OS, depending on what your app security settings are.

** Technically, you could choose to select an entire hard drive, but aside from the scan taking a very long time, it’s also much more likely to result in erroneous duplicates found and potentially lead to problems, for example a common library may be found in multiple apps and removing it may break those apps functionality, or for another example it’s possible you intentionally have duplicate copies of a picture (or from Photos app) and removing them could be a mistake. Thus it’s best to select specific user folders, do not scan an entire drive unless you are are an advanced user and unusually detail focused.

There are other ways to find duplicates on a Mac, and dupeguru offers just one option. You can also find duplicate songs in iTunes, the Photos app, or by using various Finder search parameters you can find files with duplicate names which can help track down copies as well.

DupeGuru continues to work for now although it is apparently no longer actively maintained, but it’s on Github and open source, so if you’re a developer and feel like picking up the cause, have fun.

Do you have a preferred method or app for tracking down duplicate files on the Mac? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: OSX Daily

March 21, 2018 0 comment
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How to Show the Expanded Print Details Dialog in Mac OS by Default

written by applenws

Do you frequently access the detailed printing options when printing from a Mac? If so, you’ll really appreciate this trick to always show the expanded print dialog window and settings screen.


For some quick background, typically when you go to print if you want to see expanded printing options like print paper orientation and paper size, you’ll need to click the “Show Details” button when printing a document. But with a little command line trick, you can make the expanded print dialog window the default setting in Mac OS when printing, so that you won’t have to click “Show Details” every time you print a document to make adjustments.

The expanded Print dialog window in Mac OS shows many additional print details and configuration options for printing documents, including specific page counts, the page and paper print orientation, paper size, preset settings options, printing double sided, printing borders, whether to print the header and footer of a file, whether to print in black and white or use color ink cartridges, and much more depending on the document in question and the app doing the printing. This is all quite useful information to adjust and toggle as needed for people who do a lot of file printing from a Mac, so this article will discuss how to make the expanded printer options showing all these details (and more) available by default with each print attempt.

How to Always Show the Detailed Print Dialog in Mac OS

This will change the default print setting in Mac OS so that every time you go to print a document, the fully expanded detail print dialog shows.

  1. Open the “Terminal” application in Mac OS, located in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder (or you can access through Spotlight or Launchpad)
  2. Enter the following defaults command string exactly:

    3. defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE

  3. Hit Return to execute the command, there won’t be any confirmation in the terminal
  4. Now return to any document, webpage, etc, and go to File > Print to see the expanded print dialog shown by default

You shouldn’t need to restart the Mac or relaunch any apps for the change to take effect, but if you have an active print dialog window open when you use the command you’d need to close it and start the print process again by summoning it through the File menu or the Print command.

Here is what the full expanded print dialog window looks like from TextEdit on a simple plain text file:

How to show the expanded Print dialog always in Mac OS

Typically to show those additional printing options you’d need to click the “Show Details” button at the print dialog, but with this defaults setting it becomes the default.

Compare that to the default print dialog window with much fewer options and customizations for the print effort:

The default print dialog on a Mac

This will impact all new printing attempts on the Mac, expanding all details of printing options available, and from all apps too, whether you’re printing a document to a printer or even printing to PDF on the Mac, and whether its a local or network printer doesn’t matter either.

The command works on just about every version of macOS and Mac OS X, regardless of how the m in Mac is capitalized and whether or not their are spacing in between the characters of the version name.

How to Return to Default Print Dialog Screen in Mac OS

If you have decided you do not want to see the expanded print dialog in Mac OS by default and you’d rather click the “Show Details” button at the Print dialog yourself, then you can reverse the command syntax:

  1. Open the “Terminal” application in Mac OS
  2. Issue the following command and then hit return:

    3. defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool FALSE

  3. Exit Terminal as usual

That will return MacOS to the default state of not showing the full expanded print window.

This trick is similar to another defaults trick that sets the expanded Save dialog to show as the Save default in Mac OS, and if you like as many options as possible available to you when saving or printing documents you’ll probably want to enable both of these tricks on your Mac through the defaults command strings.

Do you like the expanded print dialog window on a Mac? Do you have any printing tricks up your sleeve? Share your comments below!

Source: OSX Daily

March 19, 2018 0 comment
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Make a SuperDrive Work on Unsupported Macs? It’s Possible!

written by applenws

The Apple SuperDrive is an external CD / DVD drive that reads and writes to optical discs, and while it works great with many Macs, there are some Mac models where the SuperDrive doesn’t work, like any Mac that happened to come with a built-in optical drive. For the computers that do not support the SuperDrive, connecting the device often pops-up an error message stating that the Superdrive “is not supported on this Mac”.

Before giving up on using a SuperDrive, you might be able to use a command line hack method discussed here to make a Superdrive work on any Mac, whether it’s supported or not. Of course there is no need to do this on supported machines but for devices where the drive isn’t working, it can be helpful.


The approach detailed in this article will be modifying a Macs firmware nvram by using the command line, thus it’s only appropriate for advanced users. Like everything else, proceed at your own risk, and backup your Mac before beginning.

How to Make SuperDrive Work on Unsupported Mac

  1. Back up your Mac and data with Time Machine or your backup method of choice before beginning, this is just in case something goes wrong
  2. Open the “Terminal” application found in /Applications/Utilities/, or you can open it through Spotlight
  3. Enter the following command syntax at the command prompt exactly as it appears:
    sudo nvram boot-args="mbasd=1"
  4. Hit the Return key and enter the administrator password when requested, as required by sudo
  5. Quit out of Terminal
  6. Shut down the Mac by going to the  Apple menu and choosing “Shut Down”
  7. Connect the Apple SuperDrive to the Mac by USB once it is powered off
  8. Turn the Mac back on, when the Mac boots up again the SuperDrive should now work as expected

This should work to enable an Apple External SuperDrive to function as expected on a Mac which is otherwise not supported, but your results may vary. Let us know in the comments below if this trick worked for you.

If you decide you want to reverse this adjustment, or if you find this approach didn’t work and you want to return to defaults nvram setting for that reason or any other, you can reset the Mac PRAM / NVRAM during system start or clear the nvram variable manually from the command line too. Either approach will remove the “mbasd=1” variable from firmware settings on the Mac.

It’s not entirely clear where the original source of this nvram command comes from, but I discovered it in a bit of a web rabbit hole after following a comment left on a SuperDrive article led to a thread on Apple Discussions and an official support article, which outlines getting a SuperDrive working on unsupported Macs, and which Macs do and don’t support the SuperDrive. Apparently any Mac without an optical drive built-in should support a superdrive, but some users manually remove their optical drives to use the space for an additional hard drive, and sometimes a built-in optical drive fails too, thus leading to scenarios where such a command would be useful to enable support for the SuperDrive.

For reference, Apple says the SuperDrive works with the following Macs:

  • MacBook Pro with Retina display (newer models may require a USB-C adapter)
  • MacBook Air
  • iMac (late 2012) and later
  • Mac mini (late 2009) and later
  • Mac Pro (late 2013)

Oh and if you’re wondering about getting an Apple SuperDrive to work in BootCamp or with Windows in general, you’ll want to follow these instructions to use an Apple SuperDrive in Windows, which applies to Boot Camp as well as a general PC.

Did this trick work to enable SuperDrive functionality for you? Do you have any other tips, tricks, or suggestions on getting an Apple SuperDrive to work on an unsupported Mac? Share your experiences in the comments below!

Source: OSX Daily

March 17, 2018 0 comment
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How to Change Audio Import Settings in iTunes on Mac & Windows

written by applenws

If you’re ripping CDs to import a music collection into iTunes on a Mac or Windows PC, you may be interested in knowing that you can change the media encoding for imported music. By default, iTunes will import and rip CDs using the MP3 Encoder at 160kbps, but if you want to change the encoding settings you will find options to import the CD and encode music as AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless (m4a), MP3, and WAV.

There are two ways to access the iTunes encoder settings for importing music from CDs, either directly from the import screen, or from the iTunes Preferences. Accessing is the same in iTunes for Mac OS and for Windows. However you access the import settings, the settings will be the same and will become the default for future importing of CDs into iTunes.


First let’s cover the simplest way to adjust import encoder settings in iTunes, which is part of the general importing screen seen when inserting a CD into a computer with iTunes.

How to Change iTunes CD Importing Encoder Settings on Import

  1. Open iTunes and insert a CD to rip as usual
  2. At the Import screen, click the little gear icon in the upper right corner, it’s next to the eject button

    3. Change audio import settings in iTunes for CDs

  3. Adjust the audio import encoding settings as desired, selecting one of the following options:
  • AAC Encoder
  • AIFF Encoder
  • Apple Lossless Encoder
  • MP3 Encoder
  • WAV Encoder

change audio import settings and audio encoder and quality in iTunes

  • Next, but optional, you can adjust quality settings for imported music in the “Setting” section. Higher quality and higher bitrate audio files will sound better, but take up more disk space
  • Proceed with ripping the CD into iTunes as usual

    • You can also change import encoder settings through iTunes Preferences. This can be done even if iTunes does not actively have a CD to import or rip audio from.

    How to Change iTunes CD Encoding via Preferences

    1. Open iTunes and then go to “Preferences” from the iTunes menu
    2. Under “General” settings click on “Import Settings”
    3. Adjust the iTunes import settings as desired:
    • AAC Encoder
    • AIFF Encoder
    • Apple Lossless Encoder
    • MP3 Encoder
    • WAV Encoder

    Change audio import settings in iTunes for audio encoder and audio quality

  • Next you can also choose to adjust the quality settings, though each encoder offers different quality options. Generally speaking, for the highest quality encoding, choose a higher quality or higher bitrate setting (256kbps is notably higher quality than 160kbps for example)
  • When satisfied with your encoding settings, close out of iTunes Preferences and import music from audio CDs into iTunes as usual

    • It doesn’t really matter how you change the audio encoder and resulting file format, either approach will work.

    Just remember that higher quality settings take up more disk space, which can be relevant for limited storage devices.

    On the other hand, higher quality audio settings also sound much better, which is important for listening to music and audio on higher quality stereo systems – and yes for most people with reasonable hearing and a set of good speakers, good headphones, or a good stereo, you can hear the difference in sound quality between a 128kbps file and a 192kbps file. You can always test out the difference yourself by ripping the same song twice, one in low quality and one in higher quality settings, and as long as you have decent speaker or headphones, you should be able to hear a difference. Be aware if you’re testing the audio file formats with importing the same song, that you will create copies of the same song in the process, so you may want to use the Duplicate Song finder feature in iTunes to track down any duplicates after the fact and clean up your music library.

    You can also use the aforementioned audio encoder settings in iTunes to re-encode audio files already in iTunes into another file format, for example you can use iTunes to convert m4a files to mp3 files and vice versa.

    Audio encoding and file format is largely a matter of personal preference, but it can also vary per user and what they plan on listening to the music on, through, or with. For example, an mp3 file is nearly universally compatible and could even play on some much older mp3 players, whereas an Apple Lossless file is newer and likely wouldn’t play on older hardware dedicated MP3 players.

    Do you love iTunes? Of course you do! Check out more iTunes tips here, and feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on audio encoding with iTunes in the comments below!

    Source: OSX Daily

    March 16, 2018 0 comment
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    Get Instant Command Line Access from Anywhere in Mac OS with iTerm2

    written by applenws

    If you’re a command line user, you can imagine that it’d be useful to have a Terminal window available instantly to you from anywhere on the Mac, whether you’re currently in the Finder, Safari, Xcode, or any other application entirely. Well there’s no need to imagine, with iTerm you can have an instantly available terminal that drops down from the top of the Macs screen, giving you immediate command line access at the push of a hot key.


    Maybe you need to quickly ping a server, use Homebrew, push git changes, reboot or shut down a remote machine, connect to a remote server with ssh, or any other quick task that requires the command line. Whatever the need, you can use this great trick to have an immediately available terminal window from anywhere or from within any application in Mac OS.

    To get the drop-down command line, you will use a third party app called iTerm2, which is a popular third party terminal client for the Mac.

    How to Setup Instant Command Line Access with iTerm2

    1. Download iTerm2 from the developer, place it into you /Applications/ folder, then launch iTerm2
    2. Pull down the “iTerm2” menu and choose “Preferences”
    3. Choose the “Keys” tab and click the “Create a Dedicated Hotkey Window” button

      4. Enable the Hot key for accessing command line anywhere on Mac with iTerm2

    4. Set your hot key keyboard shortcut as desired, or choose “Double-Tap Key” and set that accordingly, the example here uses a double-tap of the ‘Control’ key to access the drop-down command line panel

      5. Set the Hotkey for instant command line access on Mac

    5. Click “OK”, optionally go to the “Profiles” menu and customize the appearance by modifying the ‘Hotkey Window’ profile as desired
    6. Confirm the drop-down instant terminal window works as expected by pressing your hot key (double-tap Control key in this example)

      7. Access a command line from anywhere on the Mac

    7. Dismiss the drop-down command line panel by clicking outside of the terminal window, or by hitting the hot key again

    Once your hot key is set, you can toggle in and out of the drop-down command line from within any application in Mac OS, as long as iTerm2 is open in the background.

    The dropdown command line is a standard shell with the full command line environment, tools, and utilities available to it, just like any other terminal window.

    Aside from customizing the hot key, you can also customize how the drop-down command line looks by going to iTerm2 Preferences > Profiles > Hotkey Window and modifying the colors, fonts, and other settings as you see fit.

    Customize appearance of dropdown command line

    Our longtime readers may recall similar posts from quite some time ago about tools like Visor and TotalTerminal that have similar functionality, but iTerm2 is unique in that it’s a universally popular third party terminal application anyway, plus it’s compatible with all modern Mac OS versions.

    If having an immediately available command line sounds interesting to you, check out iTerm2 and set up a hotkey, it’s pretty great!

    Source: OSX Daily

    March 14, 2018 0 comment
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    How to Make a Copy of Files or Folders on Mac with Duplicate

    written by applenws

    If you ever need to make a copy of a file or folder on the Mac, you’ll be happy to know that there is a super-easy way to accomplish that task thanks to the Duplicate File feature in the Mac Finder. The name is self descriptive, as Duplicate will create an exact copy of any file or folder that is specified, replicating the original item in the same active directory.


    For example, if you have a file named “Amazing Document” and you make a duplicate of that file, you will then have “Amazing Document” as well as the duplicate file labeled as “Amazing Document copy”. You can duplicate any file or folder this way, and the duplicated version will always have the suffix “copy” at the end of the file name to make the duplicate easy to identify.

    Note that the Duplicate functionality in Mac OS will make a single copy of a file, but if you choose Duplicate on a folder it will recursively make a copy of the folder and all contents contained within.

    How to Duplicate Files or Folders in Mac OS

    Duplicating a file or folder makes an exact copy of the file or folder. You can use the duplicate function from anywhere in the file system of Mac OS, here’s how it works:

    1. Go to the “Finder” on the Mac and locate the file or folder you want to duplicate and make a copy of

      2. Finder icon on the Mac

    2. Select the file or folder you wish to duplicate
    3. With the target file/folder selected in Finder, pull down the “File” menu and choose “Duplicate” *

      4. How to make a copy of a file or folder with Duplicate on Mac

    4. When duplication is complete, a copy of the selected file or folder will appear in the same directory named as “Name copy”

      5. A duplicate file appears in the same directory on Mac with a copy name suffix

    The screen shot examples above show making a copy of an image file named “Example.jpg” and the duplicated version appears in the same directory named “Example copy.jpg” – note the ‘copy’ suffix will always appear in the file name, whether you have file extensions shown in Mac Finder or not.

    Keyboard Shortcut to Quickly Duplicate a File or Folder in Mac OS

    If using the File menu is too slow for you, or if you just prefer keyboard shortcuts, then there’s a handy Duplicate Item keyboard shortcut as well.

    • Select a file or folder and hit Command + D to make a copy in Finder

    The keyboard shortcut must be activated from within the Finder with a folder or file selected.

    Duplicate a file keyboard shortcut on Mac

    For some more advanced Mac users, keyboard shortcuts are faster than menu items. However you approach the duplication process, the result is the same.

    Just like any other file or folder on the Mac, you can rename the duplicated version or the original if you want to. You can also move the copy or original somewhere else, cut and paste it, upload it to somewhere, delete it, or anything else you would normally do with a file in the file system.

    Making a copy of a file can be helpful for many obvious reasons, whether you’re going to edit a version of the document, you want a direct backup of a particular file, or maybe you just want to make a copy of something. You can also make multiple copies of the same file, just keep the original item selected and keep duplicating it, each additional copy will include an assigned counting number like “Example copy” “Example copy 2” “Example copy 3” etc.

    * An additional more advanced trick uses a keyboard modifier Shift+Option to “Duplicate Exactly”, which preserves file ownership and permissions, which can be useful for administrators when they’re copying a system level file, or modifying other users files or folders.

    There are other methods of replicating files in Mac OS too and the Duplicate functionality is not the only way. Other approaches include using the regular copy and paste commands or menu items on a selected file, holding down the Option key while dragging and dropping files, using the command line cp command, by using the command line ditto command, or dragging and dropping a file or folder to another different volume (either a partition or separate drive). Use whichever method works best for you and your Mac workflow.

    Source: OSX Daily

    March 11, 2018 0 comment
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    How to Search Emoji on Mac

    written by applenws

    You probably know that you can quickly get to Emoji icons on the Mac via keyboard shortcut or menu items, but did you know you can search Emoji on the Mac? Using the Emoji search feature makes it much faster and easier to get to a particular Emoji icon rather than browse through hundreds and hundreds of Emojis.

    How to Search Emoji on Mac

    If you want to get to a particular Emoji icon, or if you’re looking for Emoji based on a description, here’s how to use the search feature:

    1. Access the Emoji icon panel as usual in Mac OS, the fastest way is to use the Command + Control + Spacebar keyboard shortcut
    2. Scroll to the very top of the Emoji icon panel and then click into the “Search” field
    3. Type your Emoji search parameter word or term, like “Heart” or “Smile”

      4. How to search Emoji on Mac

    4. Click on the Emoji icon to type, or navigate to the Emoji icon you want to place using keyboard arrows and hit Return

    Typed Emoji from Search

    That’s all there is to it, now you can access obscure Emoji faster than ever before on the Mac.

    Note that it does not matter how you get to the Emoji icons on the Mac, you can use the Emoji Mac keyboard shortcut or use the Emoji menu item and panel in Mac OS, both will have the Search feature embedded even if it looks slightly different.

    Searching for specific Emoji on the Mac

    Do note if you are using the Emoji icon panel and Special Character Viewer tool, then the Search feature is located at the top of the Emoji panel as well but in a slightly different position, as seen here:

    Searching in the Emoji on Mac Special Characters panel

    The full Emoji panel also can tell you what a specific Emoji icon means or is defined as too, just in case you were wondering what some of the symbols mean or indicate.

    As of the moment, there is no search Emoji feature on iPhone or iPad, which seems like a curious feature to leave out of iOS, but perhaps a future system software version will gain the capability to search emoji icons by name and keyword in iOS as well.

    Source: OSX Daily

    March 9, 2018 0 comment
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    How to Install Homebrew on Mac

    written by applenws

    Advanced Mac users may appreciate using the Homebrew package manager, which greatly simplifies the process of installing command line software and tools on a Mac.

    For example, if you want to easily install favorite command line tools on a Mac like cask, htop, wget, nmap, tree, irssi, links, colordiff, or virtually any other familiar unix command line utility, you can do so with a simple command. Homebrew downloads and builds the package for you.


    This is obviously aimed at more technically savvy Mac users who spend a lot of time at the command line. While there’s no particular issue for novice users installing Homebrew on their Mac, the odds of novices finding it useful are slim, unless they intend to embark on learning the command line environment. Contrast that to power users who practically live in a terminal environment, whether longtime Mac users or migrating to the platform from the Windows or Linux world, who will immediately see the value of Homebrew.

    Requirements for Installing Homebrew on Mac OS

    prerequisites to installing Homebrew on a Mac include the following:

    • A Mac running Mac OS X 10.10 or later, though earlier versions are sort of supported
    • Command Line Tools must be installed on the Mac (either independently or through Xcode)
    • Knowledge of the command line and using bash or zsh

    Assuming you’re interested in installing Homebrew and meet those requirements, then the rest is equally straight forward.

    How to Install Homebrew on Mac OS

    The simplest way to install Homebrew is through ruby and curl, accomplished with a single command. This approach is the same for installing Homebrew in all supported versions of Mac OS and Mac OS X.

    1. Open the “Terminal” application, found in /Applications/Utilities/
    2. Enter the following command into a single line of the terminal:

      3. /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
      Installing Homebrew on Mac

    3. Hit Return and you’ll see a series of lines about what the script will install and where, hit Return again to agree or hit Escape to cancel
    4. Enter the administrator password (required by sudo execution) to begin installation

    Installation of Homebrew will take a while depending on the speed of your Mac and internet connection, as each necessary package is downloaded and installed by the script.

    When complete, you will see an “Installation successful!” message.

    Homebrew successfully installed on Mac

    Now you’re ready to install software packages through Homebrew, or you can read the help documentation with the following command:

    brew help

    Homebrew help on Mac

    Installing Software Packages through Homebrew on Mac

    Installing packages with Homebrew is super easy, just use the following syntax:

    brew install [package name]

    For example, to install wget through Homebrew you could use the following syntax:

    brew install wget

    Simple, easy. Once complete you can run wget as usual.

    Installing a package with Homebrew on Mac

    A quick side note; Homebrew is not the only way to install command line software, you can install command line tools on a Mac yourself and then compile and make software independently. For example, we discuss installing wget on Mac OS without Homebrew here and it uses the typical configure and make process. There’s nothing wrong with that approach (and arguably it might be preferable for users who want limited packages and a slimmer footprint) but if you’re accustomed to a package manager like dpkg, apt-get, or rpm you’ll almost certainly appreciate and prefer to use Homebrew.

    How to Disable Hombebrew Analytics Tracking

    Homebrew now defaults to using anonymized behavioral analytics tracking. If you do not want to participate in that or you’d just rather disable the feature to reduce network traffic or for privacy purposes, or whatever other reason, you can run the following command after successfully installing Homebrew on a Mac. This will opt out of Homebrew analytics:

    brew analytics off

    Hit return and after a moment or so the analytics tracking in Homebrew will be disabled.

    How to Remove HomeBrew from a Mac

    If you have installed Homebrew but later decide you want to remove Homebrew from a Mac for some reason or another, you can uninstall it with another ruby script run from the command line:

    ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall)"

    Alternatively, you could download that “uninstall” script directly and run it yourself.

    Enjoy Homebrew!

    Source: OSX Daily

    March 7, 2018 0 comment
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